Is your organization suffering from Post-Financial Stress Disorder?

Traveling around visiting many companies of many different shapes, sizes and with different purposes, I came up with a term that I want to share with you: Postfinancial Stress Disorder or PFSD.

Many great companies had to do severe actions to mitigate the financial crisis’ effects. Even companies not directly involved, saw themselves life-threatened by customer’s sudden inability to secure funds for their demands. In respond, many companies downsized and rationalized, often with much hardship and pain. Out of the crisis came those that survived typically stronger and potentially ready to grow again… But why is it then that it is not going as fast as we think it should?

Why is it that your employees and co-workers are irritable? That the smallest side step seems to generate unwarranted tension? And that even as things pick up, everybody seems chronically suffering from dysphoria or maybe anger? Instead of reaching out for the chance in this new poscrisis world, anxiety about their job (losing it or keeping it, it seems) seem to be the going rate of motivation?

It might just be that your company is suffering from PFSD. A result of having had to bleed the organization dry to the point of almost exhaustion. Having gone from a world were the sky is the limit, and every opportunity was jumped on with joy, to a bleak hangover reality from a sudden, and maybe undeserved, kick in the head from, what feels like, out of the blue. What is worse is that suffering from PFSD can make you question everything you believed once and subsequently lead you to a new crisis as you try to avoid the last one.

Getting out of PFSD is not something that happens automatically. It takes effort. You have to work with the organization. Tell it the outlook is different now. Feed it the right nutrition and in the right quantities. Today is the right time to ask: What have you done to relieve PFSD today?

If you want to learn and do more:

Think (that is how I came up with this term to describe what I’ve been seeing lately)

Google (there are other great bloggers out there that have simurlar thoughts and might inspire you, like here and here)